Beauty and The Beast – Movie Review

Beauty and the Beast is the live-action remake of Disney’s animated musical classic released in 1991. The animated movie was the first animated film nominated for the best picture at the Oscars. Bill Condon, the director of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, is at the helm of this live-action version starring Emma Watson as Belle and Dan Stevens as the Beast.

The movie begins with a handsome, arrogant prince drawing the wrath of an enchantress, who in guise of punishment puts a spell on him that turns him into a beast. The curse also impacts all of his staff, turning them into household objects that become less human as time goes by. The only thing that can break the curse and save them all is the power of love; Beast has to learn to love and be loved in return, in order to be free. This is made possible by the charming and strong-headed Belle, a young woman living in provincial France who finds her way to Beast’s castle in a brave attempt to save her father. How they manage to fall in love with each other despite the unfavourable circumstances is what makes this story “a tale as old as time”, loved by millions of people all over the world.

Motion-capture and CGI greatly enhanced the telling of the classic story. The live-action movie introduces new characters, backstories, songs, and technical details that help create a more immersive experience and drives you to be even more emotionally invested in the story than you originally were. The admirable feast accomplished by the magnificent CGIs on screen however were not as easy and a smooth task as we might have thought. The process of creating Plumette and the other CGI household objects for instance took months of work in the studio.

Speaking of how the main actors had to meet the challenge of working with technology while displaying human emotions to the best of their acting abilities, the director, Bill Condon affirmed that it was more of having to fill in the blanks by yourself and seeing beyond what lies in front of you. In an interview by Kevin Lincoln for vulture.com, he said “Emma was acting with what was underneath, and that’s Belle’s specific gift, the thing that’s pure about her, that she sees through Gaston when nobody else does. And for the Beast, it takes a while, but she starts to see what emerges in him. It was weird, that the act of imagination on Emma’s part was imagining the ugly exterior, but it felt very much like what the movie’s about.”

Relive the magic of this Disney classic through this enchanting live-action musical!